Katie, Patrick & I recently restarted our traditional 3-way racquetball meets of Friday afternoon. Patrick & I always have played left-handed to make things more even for Katie.

Winding the racquet safety string around my healing left wrist, tight enough to support the racquet, I announced to Katie and Patrick that I was going to play them left handed today. They were both initially incredulous, but I said that my physical therapist was trying to get my grip back to full strength, and this was as good a way as any. KT served first, and from the beginning as well as later, she took advantage of me mercilously. All her serves crawled along the right wall, and as I was on the right and Patrick was on the left, my returns had to be with my normally poor, and currently pitiful, back-handed left. Without the help of the safety string the racquet would have flown across the court, at least on the few occasions when I managed to hit the ball. Usually I just flailed.

Patrick flailed too, though with more zip and power. When it was my turn to serve, I couldn’t even get the ball over the foul line, and double faulted. Then it was KT’s turn to torment me with her wall grazer serves, For my next few serves, my feeble swing didn’t succeed at getting a ball into play until the score was 6-2-0 (K-P-D). Then at least I got the ball into play, sometimes accompanied by a wrist twinge or two. For the entire game, KT dazzled, bamboozled, and baffled her two patzer opponents, volley after volley, until she finally won, 15-2-2.

In the second game, I tried a new strategy, since I couldn’t hold the racquet tight enough to return the ball with anything more than an arching bloop. My first attempt was a golf grip with my left hand grasping the racquet and my right hand pressing against the left index finger and thumb. That didn’t violate the rule of the game that I had set–it was still basically left-handed play. The extra arm in the swing, though, threw off my coordination, so I missed the ball completely in my first attempts. But on those occasions when I connected, I could give the ball a good smack. I scored two points that way, and then started developing on a baseball grip. This got me a couple of more points. Meanwhile, Patrick, still playing left handed, had regained his eagle leftie eye, and was beating me and KT 11-4-4. KT and I stopped his momentum for a few more volleys, me with my baseball grip, and she with several spectacular diving kills. But Patrick went on to beat us soundly, 15-6-6.

At last it was 6 pm, end of our court hour, time for me to go meet Beth at the local Tex-Mex, and time for KT & P to fix their dinners at their apartments. We congratulated each other with hugs and went our separate ways. So what if I lost both games, my therapist will smile at me when I tell her I played (or tried to play) left handed r-ball. Tonight I expect I’ll have to dip into the Ibu-advil Motrin pillbox again, but next game I’ll have that baseball swing down pat and my southpaw racquet game will be stronger.

rakkity

Peter’s brother, Jim Finlay.
Michael and Jim
Photos by Emma